Asia Minor and Population Exchanges

: I’ve waffled on about Ireland familiarity with suffering ; and also, I’m afraid, about how Greece, despite its heritage was a pretty dodgy country in the 20th century, according to The Independent. When dewy-eyed European leaders signed up Greece in 1981, they overlooked its 1919 invasion of Asia Minor , mass population exchanges, century-long corruption, Nazi wartime occupation and semi-collaboration, civil war, the Colonels’ dictatorship, the invasion of Cyprus, and so on. What wrong with Greece Is it a bit too Arab perhaps, in its corruption, its feudal wealth-and-poverty cocktail, its willingness to let others decide its fate And why, I’ve been asked, is the EU prepared to risk war with Russia in order to pamper Ukraine desire to cuddle up to the European community, but at the same time been unwilling to put up the moolah to keep Greek civilization within the same blessed Union I must admit that I’ve been asked almost as many times how Ireland has overcome its economic crisis, while Greece has not. I am also struck by the fact that the other three potential defaulters over the past few years – Spain, Portugal and Italy – endured longer periods of fascist dictatorship than Nazi Germany. As Mark Mazower points out in his seminal Inside Hitler Greece, Gotzamanis vision bore an uncanny resemblance to the subsequent European Community. Read More: Greece met its latest IMF debt payment, but how Russia considers cut-price gas deal with Greece sparking EU fears Alexis Tsipras' partner will leave him if he agrees terms in debt crisis Curiously, one of Greece collaborationist leaders, Sotirios Gotzamanis, who resigned from his government in 1943, wrote a long treatise for his Berlin masters on the need for a New Europe , greater than Hitler National Socialism. (news.financializer.com). As reported in the news.